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Welcome Message from the President
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A Shocking Resolution
On March 25, 1976, more than five weeks after the meeting of the American Bar Association's legal education Council, a ten page letter from Consultant James P. White landed on my desk announcing the action the ABA had taken.
The letter was addressed to me and to Jack Cote`, who was then president of the school. As was his custom, the Consultant began by reminding us that the American Bar Association is the official accrediting organization for legal education as recognized by the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
That officious tone permeated the rest of the letter, as he quoted verbatim the resolution adopted by the Council and recited, word for word, the provisions of one ABA standard after another.
The bottom line, which left me shaking my head in disbelief, was that the Council had determined that Cooley was not in substantial compliance with the standards of the American Bar Association for approval of law schools and that unless we were able to convince them that we had eliminated all of their 'concerns' they would initiate a proceeding under Rule IV to take away our accreditation.
I took pen in hand immediately. Copies of my answer were directed to every member of the Council and the accreditation committee as well as our board of directors and faculty.
After reminding Professor White that the Thomas M. Cooley Law School had been provisionally approved by unanimous vote of the ABA's House of Delegates on February 25, 1975, I wrote:
"I'm sure it must be obvious to you that fundamental considerations of fairness and administrative and procedural due process of law require that any action which is proposed to take away vested rights of our students must be based upon a change of circumstances occurring subsequent to February 25, 1975.
"Nowhere in your letter of March 23, 1976, or in the Council resolution which you have quoted, or in your extensive verbatim repetition of the language of the Standards have you mentioned or suggested that there have been any changes in the status of compliance of Cooley Law School with the American Bar Association Standards which have occurred subsequent to February 25, 1975.
The action of the Council, I told him, should be reconsidered, unless they could cite some retrogression by the law school.
Jim White wrote back, saying that we would have the opportunity to respond in writing with regard to the deficiencies shown in the Coco team's inspection report prior to April 15, 1976 and if we didn't resolve things satisfactorily by then, the matter would go on the accreditation committee's next agenda to decide whether to hold a Rule IV hearing to revoke our approval.
His letter, dated April 8, arrived on April 12, three days before the deadline. I answered on the 12th:
"Your letter of April 8 still fails to clear up our concern.
"We understand perfectly well that we are entitled to a hearing before the Council considers any recommendation for removal from the approved list. That is not the point.
After reminding him that Rule IV speaks of a failure to "maintain" and not a failure to "achieve" compliance with ABA standards, I argued that the rule is aimed at schools which have declined in quality, and was not a vehicle to reconsider approval already granted. Then I said:
"The inspectors you sent here came with the mistaken notion that nothing that had gone before was binding on them. They specifically informed us that their visit was a 'trial de novo.'
I quoted ABA Rule III(3)"
"A provisionally approved or fully approved school is expected to maintain the qualitative level which justified its approval ..."
I insisted that we were entitled to be told clearly and in what particulars we had failed to maintain the qualitative level that justified our approval more than a year before. Then I concluded:
"It is simply unacceptable to say that a new regime has taken hold of the Council; a regime which disagrees with decisions made in the past.
"We recognize that there are some on the Council who believe that independent, professionally oriented law schools should be forced to affiliate with universities and dilute their professional emphasis with interdisciplinary programs and a wider philosophic approach to the law. But we believe that this view is a matter of opinion on which men of good will and sound judgment may differ."
They apparently didn't think so.
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This Page was last updated on:
08/19/2004